I. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to communication, and more specifically to techniques for supporting broadcast and multicast services in a cellular communication system.
II. Background
A cellular communication system can support bi-directional communication for multiple users by sharing the available system resources. Cellular systems are different from broadcast systems that can mainly or only support uni-directional transmission from broadcast stations to users. Cellular systems are widely deployed to provide various communication services and may be multiple-access systems such as Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) systems, Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) systems, Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) systems, Orthogonal FDMA (OFDMA) systems, Single-Carrier FDMA (SC-FDMA) systems, etc.
A cellular system may support broadcast, multicast, and unicast services. A broadcast service is a service that may be received by all users, e.g., news broadcast. A multicast service is a service that may be received by a group of users, e.g., a subscription video service. A unicast service is a service intended for a specific user, e.g., voice call. It is desirable to efficiently support broadcast, multicast, and unicast services in the cellular system.